The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Clyde Drexler On The Anniversary Of The Rockets Championships

Episode Date: June 15, 2020

Clyde Drexler On The Anniversary Of The Rockets Championships

is the Matt Thomas show. One o'clock on Sports Talk 790. We celebrate Clutch City 25th anniversary. They won the championship 25 years ago today. A visit with Clyde Druxer in a matter of seconds. Update from our favorite new NFL agent, who we don't know if he passed the bar or not. Apparently, well, Ezekiel Elliott tweeted.

out. Because people were telling, obviously, hey, your agent confirmed this story. Zeke Elliott says, my agent only confirmed. The story was already written and reported as been calling my agent all morning. Think he's doing damage control? Your agent doesn't have to confirm or pick up the calls. So you should still have, get mad at your agent. Why would the Dallas Cowboys only release his name and not anybody else?

Why, it's not the Cowboys released it. It got leaked by somebody within the organization, I guess. Meaning that somebody's kicking the tires. Hey, can you give me somebody? Yes. Is anybody big? Like Ed Werders talking to Jerry probably. Jero.

Give me the biggest name you have. Is it your kicker? No. Is it your punter? No. Is it your punter? No. You know what?

It probably was Jerry, right? He's having a morning Bloody Mary. Just tell some reporter on me. Oh, yeah, he's got loose lips. You know what? I apologize to Rory. What's the guy's name? Rocky Arsenal.

I apologize. You are a stellar attorney. You're a great agent. You're a friend of all. to all of us, and we believe you passed your bar on the first go-around. Jerry, the bloody Mary's kicked in early, and your star running back, you paid a boatload of money to who held out last year, and now got the Rona. How are you feeling?

That's exactly right. All right, 713-21-2-5-7-90. We've not heard from anybody. Is anybody out there today? Y'all just bumping around and joining this warm weather. It's championship recap day, 25-year anniversary. Clyde Drexler was signed via trade. and how it all went down,

as among the things we talked about with Clyde, as I did a little while ago, as we celebrate the 25th anniversary of the second championship. Clyde and I spoke first and foremost about exactly what it was like the night that he entered the arena floor at the summit for the first time being introduced as a rocket, not playing in uniform, but just coming and wearing that Houston Rockets hat the day he got traded.

Well, Matt, it was really, first of all, delighted to be on. the show, hope you well. Say hello to all the listeners. But Matt, that was just a surreal moment. You know, I had a great career in Portland, 12 years almost. We had a lot of success that gone to the finals. I had the best record in the league. And so to be traded to my hometown of Houston, Texas was a thing of beauty. It's the way I wanted to finish my career. If I was ever going to leave Portland, the only place I would have gone was Houston. And so to have that opportunity and to have an opportunity at a championship was like, are you kidding me? This is too good to be true. And so when you saw me with that Rockets hat on, I was elated. I couldn't believe

that it happened. And I knew good things were in store for the Houston Rockets. Did the Blazers keep you up to date on where you could be going? And did you give them kind of the parameters of, hey, or how much were you involved when hearing the talks about you eventually living Portland. Well, you know, I was completely involved because they couldn't do anything without my consent. So they could not do anything without my consent. Let me say that again. I wasn't, I didn't want to rebuild and that's what they were doing in Portland and I didn't want to stop them from their rebuilding. But I wanted to compete for a championship because I thought I could still play a little bit, right? Well, you did. It was my 12th year in the league. And, you know,

I thought I was just getting back. healthy. And so I wanted to compete. And so I kind of helped orchestrated that trade with Robert Barr and Houston Rockets and Leslie Alexander. Those were the guys who made that trade possible. Me, Robert Barr and Leslie Alexander, we orchestrated that trade and made it happen. No wonder you're the commissioner of the big three. You know how to handle these kind of moves like that. Well, you know, the thing is, if you're a franchise player, you need to have some ability to affect your movement. Like, I didn't leave Portland to go to New York when I was a free agent, but the one thing

I demanded was I have to have, you know, power over where I do play. But it couldn't make a move without my approval. Let's be honest. The record the rest of the way was kind of average pedestrian. A couple of big winning streaks, couple of big losing streaks. What was it like, just talking about the regular season, and why wasn't there this huge explosion when you came here? Well, the thing is, I think Hakeem got injured. The minute we got, the minute we got it going, Hakeem got injured. So we had to really survive and fight to keep our

playoffs feeding. Otherwise, it could have been really, you know, you don't want to go. I think we were third or fourth until he got hurt. Then we dropped it. We could have dropped to like number eight. And so we were able to keep the sixth seed. And so that's where we were,

Utah was so good to have to play them in the first round was a disappointment. But we knew if we're going to win the West, we've got to beat all the good teams. really doesn't matter when or where you face them. You've got to just play the games that you have to play. Matt, let me tell you, that team was phenomenal for three reasons. It was well coach.

Rudy was phenomenal. His own staff, those guys understood. Leslie Alexander, Robert Barr, Carol Dawson. I mean, they were all phenomenal people. So you got a lot of good people as leaders in that organization. So I was proud to be on an organization that had great leadership, first of all. And then the players, they had won the championship the year before. So they were championship caliber player.

Now, me coming from Portland had been in two finals at Western Conference Finals, so that's three. And so we all had playoff experience. And then you got Dream playing at a very, very high level. You got a guy like me who was a franchise player, had a couple of injuries, getting older, but can still pull it together whenever he needed to. Right. But Hakeem, I want to get my teammates all the credit.

Hakeem, Robert Ory, Mario, L.A., Kenny Smith, Sam Cassell, Pete Kilcutt, Elmigo, Chuckie Brown. I mean, those guys are all very good players. Just incredible. Kenny Smith, did I mention Mario Elliott? You did. Big shot, Bob.

I mean, these guys were just good guys, too. And Maxwell was on that team as well. And so just a lot of great guys who came together and made it happen for the city of Houston. And it's been far too long, Matt. It's been 25 years. It's time for another championship. Yeah, you're telling me.

The Phoenix series, now you weren't a part of the team, obviously, in 94 when they came back and the whole Choke City Club City thing. What was it like? What was the locker room like with many of those guys going, oh, here we go again. Phoenix is another playoff series, and I'm sure revenge is certainly going to be on their mind. Well, one of the thing that's always prevalent about that team, we were road warriors. We were never going to be intimidated or we were never going to say, hey, we can't do this. we had a good spirit of can do. We can do anything if we stick together and play our game.

It's going to be tough for teams to beat us because we're strong in the middle. We got rim protection. We got great defense. We got great three-point shooting. And we were good in transition. So we had all of the intangibles. And that's why that team was so good. You know, it's funny.

I've spent a lot of time watching NBA TV and seeing some of the great highlights of not only you as a rocket, but as a blazer, and just watching a lot of the great NBA finals. I know that so much of the decade was focused on the Chicago Bulls, but you guys beat a tremendous Orlando Magic Basketball team. I mean, they were loaded. They had young guys and young stars like Penny and Shaq. They had veteran guys. They were deep.

I mean, I hope basketball historians can really talk at length about how good that Orlando team was and how you were able to beat them four consecutive times. Well, the Orlando team was phenomenal. Remember, they beat Michael Jordan and the Bulls and beat him convincingly. They were young. Shaq and Penny were real Hall of Fame players. They had side guys like Dennis Scott, Horace Grant. Those guys could all play Nick Anderson. They were well coached.

They were a fine-tuned machine. The one thing we had was experience on them. And that's what played the biggest part. I think Kenny Smith came up big in game one. When he hit that shot, the three-pointer to force an overtime. And we ended up winning that overtime. But I tell you what, we were down about 20, 25 points. game one. And we were looking at that like, well, I guess we got to get ready for game two.

But somehow we came back and stole that game in game one and they never regained their confidence because that was a tremendous loss. The intangibles, whether it's a good defensive stop, or it's a tip-in-law dream or a jump shot you made, or our team missing free throws. All the ability to make free throw. Yeah. I mean, the little things. Absolutely. But see, that's why I've always said, if you're a great player and you don't have a championship, don't feel bad because this is a team sport. You need a. everything to be working well in order to win. Matt, you can have 50 points and 40 rebounds. But if I don't make the two free throws to win the game or send it in the overtime to have a

chance to win, does that make you not a champion? Come on. This is not tennis or golf. You can't look at this like an individual sport. It's a team game and it's a great game, but you need a real team to win. And it's emphasis on team. There's no eye in team. You can be a great individual player, but you need your teammate. and that's the only way you can win. Clyde Drexer with us here on the Matt Thomas show on Sports Talk 790. I always like to ask guys when I turn back the clock, where's the ring right now?

Well, it's in the safe deposit box, Matt. I don't think I'll look at it since 95. It's one of those things that you consider sacred. And, you know, you just have so many good memories. And it's just, if you ever play team sports to have an opportunity to put yourself in position to win, it's a wonderful thing. And they actually do it, well, it's even better.

And so the city of Houston, I like to say our fans were the best in the world. They were number one because they were knowledgeable, they were supportive. They picked us up whenever we were down. And let me tell you something, coming back home and seeing all of that was a thing of beauty. Before I let you run, I want to get your thoughts on the bubble, the campus in Orlando. You know, Matt, I have conflicting thoughts about that. And I love Adam Silver and everything he does in the NBA. He's always responsible.

He supports everyone. He's looking out for everyone's best interest. But I just don't know. During this pandemic, it's hard to determine, you know, what you should do and what you shouldn't do. I applaud them for trying to have a season, whether it's going to work out or not. We'll find out. But I'm sure they've had a lot of experts give them, you know, worst-case scenarios. They've talked to the players, the coaches.

And if they all agree, then, you know, we'd love to see it. Probably there's just so many details that every time you go into a boardroom and shut the door and think about, what are we supposed to do about this if this happens? I mean, there's got to be a lot of what-ifs, basically, right? A lot of what-ifs in scenarios that you, you know, like nobody saw the pandemic coming. You could have all the forecasts and analytics in the world, but there are some unforeseen circumstances. Because think about it. Most of the coaches are a little bit older, and so they're more at risk.

some of the players, they're going to be around, they're not going to just be in a bubble in Orlando. They're going to go out to restaurants and they've got to eat. They've got to get out the room and do stuff. So they're going to be exposed. My thought is, you know, the NBA is very, very, very smart in the way they approach everything. And I support them a thousand percent. So I'm hoping that good things happen and then no one gets hurt.

And it doesn't take away from any of the, momentum that we're seeing as the cases begin to drop a little bit. We'll leave it at that, friend. Thank you so much for the time. I want to see you back on television soon. Go some games, hopefully. Enjoy the rest of your summer, my friend, and we'll talk soon. Thank you, Matt.

These protests are keeping everybody busy, but hopefully there'll be some serious changes in the future. I would completely agree with it. Thanks very much. Clyde Drex are with us here on the Matt Thomas show. More coming up in a moment here on Sports Talk 790.